Remembering our friends, neighbors who passed in 2017

Saturday

Dec 30, 2017 at 5:35 PMDec 30, 2017 at 5:41 PM

Tom McNiff @DC_tmcniff

LEESBURG – Too many friends and cherished community leaders left us too soon in 2017. Some were business leaders, others political leaders. All of them left indelible marks on Lake and Sumter counties.

Here is a look at a few of them:

Buddy Buie

Dougal M. “Buddy” Buie, III, a former Eustis city commissioner and mayor, died on Jan. 12 at age 63.

Buie, a graduate of Eustis High School and Florida State University, was a financial advisor with Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. He also was a member of LifePointe Church of Eustis, a former Deacon of Bay Street Baptist Church, past president of the Rotary Club of Eustis and a member of the Eustis Sailing Club.

Buie was perhaps best known for leading the effort to secure a grant to save Ferran Park’s Alice McClelland Memorial Bandshell years ago rather than demolishing. Today, the bandshell is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and is one of only two open-air bandshells in the world, along with the Daytona Beach Bandshell, built from natural coquina rock.

He served as a city commissioner from January 1989 to January 1993 and was mayor in 1991.

Anita Wilson Doebler

Anita Wilson Doebler, believed to be Lake County’s oldest resident at the time, died at 108 years old Feb. 1 at Brookdale Senior Living in Tavares.

Doebler’s son, Rev. Robert Wilson, 87, of Crozet, Virginia, said he wanted to make sure people knew she was a little older than that.

“She turned 108 and a half last Wednesday,” he said at the time. “That was very important to her. She was already thinking about her 109th (birthday) and she was halfway there.”

Wilson, one of four children, two of whom are still living, said he will personally never forget that it was his mother’s encouragement that helped him decide on becoming a pastor. The thing he said that most defines Doebler, however, is the care she gave to so many.

“The most important thing people should know about my mom is that she was a wonderful caregiver ... as a daughter, as a mother and as a wife,” he said.

Ron Butler

Ron Butler, co-owner of The Great Pizza Co., in Eustis, died Aug. 7 of injuries he suffered in May when he was struck by a car while riding his golf cart.

The accident happened at 3:42 p.m. on May 4 on County Road 452, about 500 feet north of Em El Grove Road, according to a Florida Highway Patrol report. Butler had reportedly gone to get the mail in his 2003 Club Car and was crossing CR 452 when he was struck on the left side by a 1999 Honda Civic. The collision caused the golf cart to overturn, the report noted.

Richard Langley

Traveling west on Florida’s Turnpike, you can see a sign indicating the Clermont/Winter Garden exit 272 interchange is named in honor of Sen. Richard H. Langley, a Republican legislator who represented Lake County.

“I don’t think a lot of people realize it, but Dick (Langley) was most instrumental and fought the hardest to get that interchange and we’re fortunate. It changed the entire face of Clermont from an economical and growth standpoint,” Micki Blackburn-Nagel, a long-time area realtor and Langley’s sister, said after his passing of brain cancer on Aug. 9.

Langely, a veteran of the Korean War, was also known for his push for stricter DUI laws.

Langley was born in Lakeland and attended law school at the University of Florida. Before serving in the Senate, Langley was elected to the Lake County School Board, where he served as chairman from 1971-1972. He was an attorney and land developer for Lake and Sumter counties.

Don Hahnfeldt

Don Hahnfeldt was most recently known as newcomer to the Florida House of Representatives, a stalwart conservative who supported gun rights and was a fierce foe of abortion.

A week before his death in December, Hahnfeldt and Rep. Lori Berman, D-Lantana, filed a bill (HB 1029) that would raise the legal age for smoking from 18 to 21. In a news release issued with Berman and Senate sponsor David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, Hahnfeldt said raising the legal age “will save a projected early loss of life of 270,000 young lives and $8.6 billion in health care costs, as well as $8.3 billion in productivity losses.”

But before his nascent State House career, Hahnfeldt had a distinguished career in the U.S. Navy during which he commanded nuclear submarines and, after moving to The Villages, he was elected to the Sumter County Commission in 2012.

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